London loved L’Wren Scott. Even Mick Jagger toed the line - he knew it was her time to shine

Earlier this week L’Wren Scott, fashion designer and Mick Jagger’s lover, was found dead in New York. Nick Curtis talks to her many friends about how much they will miss the queen of elegance

Tuesday 18 March 2014 12:16 BST

At Christmas in Mustique no one knew anything was amiss. L’Wren Scott and Mick Jagger were happy and healthy, surrounded by friends. Possibly, it was in February that it all went wrong, when Scott was forced to cancel her London Fashion Week show at short notice due, allegedly, to problems producing the clothes.

At that stage we didn’t know how deep a hole her fashion business, LS Fashion Ltd, was in. But this morning, a close friend of Scott’s told the Standard that shame at the failure of her company was almost certainly the cause of the American designer, stylist and former model’s apparent suicide, rather than any problems with Jagger.

She had been depressed about her company’s £5.6 million debt, the friend confirmed: Jagger, and their friends, had been worried about her, but no one suspected she would take her own life.

Amid the grief and the confusion a picture emerged today of a woman who was stylish, loyal and funny, who united the scattered Jagger clan and was a zestful force on the London social scene, but who could also be intense, sometimes difficult, and who compartmentalised her life.

“She was a perfectionist, and perfectionist people can sometimes seem very pristine and sorted on the surface — you never know what is going on underneath,” said another friend today. “She never spoke about money when we discussed fashion, and her identity as a designer was completely separate from her relationship with Mick — other people would have bandied it about.”

A suicide is always shattering for those left behind. Jagger is mourning today in Australia, and has cancelled the Rolling Stones’ first concert in Perth. His daughter Georgia May has pulled out of a fashion show in Melbourne. Jagger’s ex-wife Bianca is too upset to say anything beyond her initial condoling tweet, and Scott’s wider social circle is struggling to process the news.

“L’Wren Scott had an incredibly strong personality and vision — I had never seen the vulnerability that must have been there,” the editor of British Vogue, Alexandra Shulman, said this morning. Musician and photographer Bryan Adams, a sometime neighbour of Jagger and Scott in Chelsea, who lent Scott his Paris apartment for appointments with clients, said simply: “L’Wren was my friend, I will really miss her friendship and her beautiful smile.” The editor of British GQ, Dylan Jones, added: “The entire room always revolved around her. I have no idea what dreadful things were occupying her thoughts recently, but I do know that she had managed to carve a really important place for herself in the fashion world, and she will be greatly missed.”

Although her adoptive family in Utah will feel the pain as keenly as Jagger, the wider impact of Scott’s death is being felt most strongly here, in London. The 6ft 3in glamazon with the 42-inch legs seemed to own the capital since she hosted the Serpentine Gallery’s summer party last June and went on to accompany the Stones on their triumphant Glastonbury debut. It was the summer of Scott and an acknowledgment of London’s supremacy as a world city — if you could make it here, you could make it anywhere.

After two successful shows for her collections in 2013 — where comfort food, astonishingly, was served, and American Vogue editor Anna Wintour ate shepherd’s pie next to Jagger — this February’s LFW event was to have been her apotheosis, her hat-trick.

In a statement, the London Fashion Council described Scott as “an iconic woman who inspired so many, and a designer whose contributions to the fashion industry were both extraordinary and unique. She will leave behind an exceptional legacy however we are so incredibly proud to have had her in our midst.”

Remembering the 2013 shows, the editor of Cosmopolitan, Joanna Coles, says: “She was deeply charming and like her designs, her shows were the height of elegance and luxury, with no detail overlooked. Knowing how exhausted editors get going from show to show, she would always serve a sit-down lunch of utter deliciousness and she told me she personally chose all the editors who attended. It was a small and targeted group. One year we all got a baked potato and our own tin of caviar and champagne.”

“I am deeply shocked to hear this sad news,” said Serpentine co-director Julia Peyton-Jones last night. “L’Wren was a great supporter of the Serpentine Galleries through her wonderfully generous collaboration with us for the 2013 Summer Party, our annual fundraiser. She brought with her the perfect combination of style, glamour and energy. Her death is a great loss to both the fashion world and to culture internationally.”

The young singer, Natalie Findlay, whom Scott promoted and dressed as the show-stopping act for that party, is devastated. “Although I only spent a brief amount of time with her, she was a genuine sweetheart and very kind and supportive of me,” said Findlay. “I am so grateful to have spent time working closely with her and to have worn her wonderful creations. It’s a real tragedy to have lost a great talent in such a gracious, beautiful woman.”

According to celebrity photographer Dave Benett “everyone in London loved her. She was a tough girl but she always had a laugh, and she made Mick laugh. And he really toed the line for her: he was at all her shows; it had become about her, not just about him — it was her time. People like her and Tom Ford and Stella McCartney showing here really helped London regain the top spot in the fashion world.”

There is an incomprehension that someone with a gift for deep and lasting friendship and a huge joie de vivre could take her own life. “L’Wren was someone I knew since I was 17,” said model Naomi Campbell. “We travelled the world together many times. L’Wren was someone I always loved. She was the epitome of elegance and femininity yet still had a girlish quality. I will miss her honesty and I will miss her friendship. My heart goes out to Mick and all who loved her and were loved by her. May she rest in peace.”

The model and muse Daphne Guinness said: “L’Wren was a great, true friend and human being, a remarkable and gifted talent and it saddens me deeply to know that I won’t see her again.”

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Mick Jagger

The milliner Stephen Jones had known Scott “since we first worked together at Thierry Mugler in Paris in the mid-1980s. We later became firm friends during her time in Hollywood at Vanity Fair and as fashion stylist to the Oscars. Recently we have had tremendous fun each season collaborating on her own collections, exploring another fashion adventure be it Tuxedo Terrace, Tea-Time or my personal favourite, Yorkshire Pudding. L’Wren’s sense of dramatic glamour, long-limbed elegance and pizzazz was celebrated in an exhibition we launched in Qatar last November. She dazzled her fans with her charming vivacity as much as her exquisitely embroidered dresses.”

Scott had never lacked for celebrities to endorse her as a superb designer for the female form, as well as a friend: as a former model and stylist she enjoyed a fruitful one-to-one relationship with the women she designed for.

Nicole Kidman, Madonna, Sarah Jessica Parker and Gwyneth Paltrow are among those reeling today. Scott was rumoured to be designing Angelina Jolie’s wedding dress. But the finances of bespoke high fashion are perilous and Scott was clearly keen to monetise her brand, though a collaboration with Banana Republic last year and her recently launched collection with makeup artist Bobbi Brown.

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“She wanted to make her designs available to those who weren’t A-list and her collaboration with Banana Republic was genius and accessible,” says Joanna Coles. The show in Doha that Stephen Jones mentions perhaps signalled a plan to exploit the lucrative Middle Eastern market.

We will never know the full truth behind Scott’s death, the precise interplay of personal and professional factors that drove her to suicide. Evening Standard journalist Jane Mulkerrins remembers with great fondness her interview with Scott in New York last year, ahead of the Serpentine Party and the Banana Republic collaboration. Scott opened up about the cut-throat nature of fashion, the way it promotes insecurity and the need for a “thick skin”. “If anyone ever says to you that they don’t lack confidence, they are lying,” Scott told Mulkerrins. But back then, she seemed full of energy and professional zeal. “I am loving running the business — I really am enjoying it,” she said. “It is a constant learning curve — every day you learn something you didn’t know, or perhaps didn’t want to know. I am always having my eyes opened. It is a very tough business though, and we are a very niche brand. I don’t have any plans for grand expansion right now.

“I really care about quality over quantity, so I have always focused on true luxury — that’s very important for me to maintain. I never really think about what I should be doing — I think about what is interesting to me – I think that’s the whole point of having your own business – so we always go to our own drum beat. If something is interesting to me, and it feels right, then I will do that. I am completely thrilled with how it is all going.”